were managed, as it might easily be, so as to afford the means of frequent and rapid communication, these causes alone would produce a great increase of letters.[1] The extent of the increase thus obtained, as well as the extent of that which would result from the reduced postage, does not admit of exact calculation; but, judging from the effects produced by similar causes, (as the increase of letters resulting from Mr. Palmer's improvements, and the greatly extended consumption of any article in general request which
- ↑ The increase of travelling between places connected by railways may be cited in support of this view. The fares between such places have not been much reduced by the railways; (in some instances they are not reduced at all;) and yet it has been shown by Dr. Lardner that the number of travellers between places so connected has increased nearly four-fold. (See the Reports of the Bristol meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.) In his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on the Blackwall railway, Dr. Lardner states the number of persons conveyed along the Dublin and Kingston railroad, in a single year, to be about a million and a quarter.
(Parliamentary Report, 1835, No. 443, p. 21;) but surely the means employed for enforcing punctuality on the part of the mail-coaches are not less applicable to coaches travelling a short distance. Indeed all doubt on this subject is fully removed by the successful experiment of the West India Dock Company. For some time past the coaches which run every quarter of an hour between Billiter Square and the West India Docks have been quite as punctual in their departure and arrival, and nearly as quick, as the mail-coaches. This improvement is the result of a contract which the Dock Company has entered into with the coach proprietors for the conveyance of dispatches between the Company's office in Billiter Square and the Docks; by which contract punctuality is secured under certain penalties.
